What are some good railway building games with UK stock/maps?

[mspljd1990]

I used to love Rail3D back in the day and I remember there being some great Manchester, Liverpool and Yorkshire layouts on the old Yahoo groups. Sadly I think they might be gone.

I like Simutrans and someone over at the official Simutrans has taken their time to create an absolutely fantastic map that has the entirety of the UK rail network, last updated in late 2019.

But, I'm wanting to try something new. Any recommendations? I'm looking for a game where I can create layouts and use (preferably modern) British rolling stock.

 

[Ted172]

Train Simulator 2020 by Dovetail Games is a good shout. Plenty of british rolling stock and routes both payware and freeware. There is a route editor where you can create your own routes and layouts.

 

[Trainfan344]

Open TTD is a great one with british stock available to download. Plenty of info available online. Train sim is good but route editiing is a little difficult.

 

[TheEdge]

I'd caution against getting Train Sim if you are just after an editor, at best it can be difficult, at worst downright obtuse when it comes to editing.

Transport Fever 2 (or 1) isn't bad for it and there is a decent amount of UK content out there.

 

[Peter Kelford]

I'd go for Transport Fever. I haven't bought 2 yet. TF1 has more user-made content but TF2 has more developer-made features. With both of them, you can get track down in a basic landscape and start running trains very quickly, but you can also spend absolutely hours detailing areas.

 

[Bigchris]

I've spent hours playing TF1 & TF2. TF2 seems to have quite a bit of UK stock to download, and quite a few modern locos that weren't available in TF1 (latest to appear are 68s & 92s in various liveries). TF2 is a better looking game but there are still a few bugs in it and you need a pretty high spec machine for it to play smoothly. I have a top end gaming laptop and it starts stuttering on the large maps if I get too many vehicles on the go (and I'm talking in the 100s).
If you're happy with continental stock then stick with TF1 and just download the massive amount of extra stock that's available.

 

[D365]

Isn’t TpF2 supposed to be compatible with TpF1 mods and assets?

 

[Peter Kelford]

Isn’t TpF2 supposed to be compatible with TpF1 mods and assets?

I'm not sure, I don't think so but if I put a TF2 mod on TF1 it says that it's 'deprecated' and crashes when I try to buy said locomotive.

 

[Bigchris]

No, they're not compatible. Some of the TF1 mods have been updated for TF2 but nowhere near as many for TF2 yet.

 

[Peter Kelford]

No, they're not compatible. Some of the TF1 mods have been updated for TF2 but nowhere near as many for TF2 yet.

A lot of mods (and you see this with Cities: Skylines) are poor-quality quickly thrown together maps that have little to no play value - i.e. basically autogenerated maps, just with less balancing and utility. I haven't seen one of those for a little while though, to be fair.

 

[Bigchris]

Agreed. Personally though I've never been bothered using other people's maps, I prefer to create my own, but I do use lots of the rolling stock, infrastructure and assett mods. I've encountered a few on both games that have caused crashing issues but not that many. I'd say there were 10 or 12 out of about 300 in TF1 that caused issues, and I've only seen a handful that have issues on TF2.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Agreed. Personally though I've never been bothered using other people's maps, I prefer to create my own, but I do use lots of the rolling stock, infrastructure and assett mods. I've encountered a few on both games that have caused crashing issues but not that many. I'd say there were 10 or 12 out of about 300 in TF1 that caused issues, and I've only seen a handful that have issues on TF2.

One of them is a rake of Gresley teaks, but not all of them. Just one of a set of multiple teaks have caused crashes.